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We’re at the end of 10 months on the case study website. The site was running as planned However, that’s going to change when we get into September.
Most of you are aware, Google released the Helpful Content update in the latter part of August. Unfortunately the site was hit with a hefty. I’ll get into that in a moment before we look at the figures for August.
If you’re not familiar with this case study, make sure to go through the entire playlist the on YouTube and prior posts at the blog.
Posts Published
In August, we released an additional 26, including:
Topic Clusters
We also completed cluster #10 that was a huge one, and we started the cluster #11.
If you’re currently enrolled in this course in which this site case study is revealed, the cluster number 11 is the one that was used in the videos on keyword research and the very first analysis of competition video. As of the time of writing, all of these articles have been released and linked internally and linked, so please go through them to see what we’ve come up with using them.
Traffic
The traffic we saw in August was up by 35%, taking our total to around 22,000 pageviews.
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Here’s a screenshot of Search Console:
Here’s a sample taken from Google Analytics:
Helpful Content Update Impact
When Google first made the announcement of the Helpful Content update, I knew it could be a major deal. They not only announced the update, but they actually offered us a list things they would like for us to include on our websites.
While we read the list of questions you can you about your website A few points were clear:
- They are looking to cut back on AI content
- They are looking for websites that “stay in their comfort zone” (basically being a news-oriented emphasis on your website)
- They would like their articles that aren’t stuffed with fluff
- They are looking to gain firsthand information
Ben and I debated the issues and what we thought our sites would be in the spectrum. Because this was supposed to be a massive update We wanted to have some idea about what we could be expecting.
We concluded that we’d be okay overall, but two of our sites (3 and five) are extremely broad , with many random articles as well as all of our initial five sites is full of unnecessary fluff in their older content (we’ve made improvements over the past year through improved writing services and less words per page).
The website we believed would be Google’s guidelines best was site number 6 (this example site). In the end, we created this site with the aim to create the best source for our visitors.
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We achieved this by covering topics in depth (focused content with not a random post) as well as heavy internal linking and linking to external resources as well as limiting unnecessary content by keeping every post on the topic and incorporating relevant subtopics.
We were surprised to discover that this particular website was hit most severely by the update, losing around 50 percent of its traffic and the decline began at around 8/31.
Here’s how it looks to date, the first time on Search Console over the past three months:
In Analytics, we compare over the past 30 days with the prior 30 days:
In terms of our other sites are concerned there was only one site that suffered a setback which was site #5. The only similarities between sites #5 and #6 is that both are new and have a low level of authority.
I haven’t looked into the issue in depth yet, however there are two patterns I’ve observed in the past with some of the terms found on the site for case studies:
- Our posts that are well-focused are getting beaten out by high-authority websites that can cover the subject in a couple of paragraphs.
- Forums are currently taking the top position in certain cases.
Shaun Marrs (check out his YouTube channel if you’re not familiar with him) also left a comment saying he’s noticed that “the Google Discussions/Questions And Answers widget has been added to the SERP in 2nd place and is sucking up a ton of traffic.” He stumbled upon our case study site because he has a site in the same niche.
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As I mentioned I haven’t investigated this much and I’m not going to speculate on the reasons why this site was affected. But, given the fact that we designed this site with the user at heart, I think about how many backlinks are being considered as a signpost for “helpful information.”
Most of you are aware that we don’t have backlinks for our websites however it doesn’t mean they’ren’t significant. Backlinks are among the few factors that have been proven to be a major factor in ranking however, with keywords that aren’t competitive generally, you’ll be ranked just fine without them.
To give you an insight, our four oldest sites have all had domain ratings from the 30s and 40s, in accordance with the free backlink checker tool. Our case study website is currently less than 1. We gained all the backlinks naturally through time, just by publishing high-quality articles that target keywords with low competition.
Final Thoughts
A hit from an Google algorithm update isn’t an ideal situation, especially when you believe your website shouldn’t be affected in the first place.
With this site as a case study I believe it’s just an issue of time (and perhaps backlinks) before things improve and return to normal. The site was created with the user in mind, and there’s absolutely no reason to think it won’t work over the long haul.
We haven’t yet taken the time to study the effects of the update in detail I’m not expecting to make adjustments to our strategy. We’re already doing what we think we need to do to create a useful website for our customers.
It will be interesting to observe is whether our growth slows down following this update, or if it continues to grow as it was before. If it continues going in the proper direction, we’ll get back to where we were several months.
This update was over the top which is why I’ll let it be. Keep an eye on the calendar for a new update within one month.
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